It might have been something that you did surreptitiously at one time because you were too lazy/skanky to have a shower but there are now adverts encouraging you to use specific products to spray on your nether regions! Presumably these are specially formulated not to irritate or inflame your sensitive bits. I can imagine the screams if you tried to use products from the 70s or 80s for that purpose with whatever flamethrower -ready propellant they used to use then. It seems a complete turn round from the idea that if you attend to your personal hygiene, you won't need such products. If you can smell yourself, it's time to get in that shower! You're even encouraged to sniff your garments to see if a squirt of Febreze might let you get away with wearing it one more time. People joke about turning their underpants inside out then wearing them back to front to get another few days out of them but perhaps that's reality for some.
Recently someone who used to be in special forces was being interviewed on local radio following a phone in on whether you should change your underpants daily and of course they asked this person that question. He said, well, on duty in hostile territory they might have to wear the same clothes for thirty days, and after that they would probably have to peel the underpants off (and probably butn them). The young chap interviewing, who had previously proposed daily changes if not more often, sounded as if he was about to throw up. I couldn't help thinking that here was an excellent argument for "going commando", ie no underpants.
Conversely, I'm old enough to remember a time when you had a bath every Sunday whether you needed it or not. I suppose people just got used to the pong. Then again, Just about everyone used to smoke everywhere to the extent nobody smelt it, and it probably overpowered everything else. Somewhere in between I got accustomed to a daily bath or shower (though I did work in healthcare) and smoking became more constrained. Maybe the population just got their sense of smell back.